The president of Grove College has recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition of all-female education and begin admitting men. Pointing to other all-female colleges that experienced an increase in applications after adopting coeducatio

Essay topics:

The president of Grove College has recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition of all-female education and begin admitting men. Pointing to other all-female colleges that experienced an increase in applications after adopting coeducation, the president argues that coeducation would lead to a significant increase in applications and enrollment. However, the director of the alumnae association opposes the plan. Arguing that all-female education is essential to the very identity of the college, the director cites annual surveys of incoming students in which these students say that the school's all-female status was the primary reason they selected Grove. The director also points to a survey of Grove alumnae in which a majority of respondents strongly favored keeping the college all female.

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

In the preceding argument we find that the president of Grove College argues that adopting coeducation to the all-female college will increase the number of applications and enrollments to the college. However, the director opposes this view by saying that being an all-female education upholds the identity of the college. While both arguments may seem valid at first glance, upon scrutiny we can find that they are poorly reasoned and based on several questionable assumptions. Hence, We need more information regarding the college to support both claims.

To begin with, the president assumes that increase in the number of application and enrollments in other colleges after adopting coeducation will likely be the case in Grove College. We need more information about the two colleges to support this claim. Maybe the other all-female college has increased the quality of their staffs while adopting coeducation, rendering its increase in applications and enrollments. Again, the lab and other facilities provided by the college may be superior compared to Grove college, or the location of the college makes it more accessible and cheaper for the students to live in. If these hold to be the real reasons behind the increase in applications and enrollments in other colleges, then by simply making Grove College admit male candidates would not beget the desired results.

In addition, the director's argument about the college's identity based on a survey conducted on incoming students and alumnae needs to be validated. The survey should include more volunteers. The identity of the college has to be determined not just by incoming students and alumnae, but also by current the students in the college and the teaching and non-teaching staffs. Their opinions are also to be considered in the survey. Moreover, the survey needs to be representative of all classes rather than focusing on just one group. Also, we need to know whether proper emphasis was given on the question about adopting coeducation in college. If the question was among other 30 questions that needed to be answered, proper importance wouldn't be given while answering the question. Furthermore, the particular question that was asked on the survey would provide more clarity on the issue. For example, the response to the question as to whether Grove College should adopt coeducation wouldn’t be the same as to whether admitting male candidates would tarnish the identity of Grove College. Thus, several questions need to be answered in order to make the Directors claim valid.

While both the arguments exist, another primal point that needs to be answered remains unquestioned. The feasibility of the proposed plan is nowhere mentioned in the argument. In order to accommodate the increased applications and enrollments, sufficient seats should be available in the college first. Moreover, Hostel and accommodation facilities for the increased number of students also need to be given consideration. Without proper facilities to accommodate the increased demand, the plan would only cause inconveniences on both students’ and management's sides. Likewise, the competitiveness of the expected male candidates has to be predicted. If the males, for whatsoever reason, tend to be less competent than females, then a drastic change in enrollment seems unlikely. Had the author provided more information regarding the feasibility of the plan, the argument would have been a cogent case.

In sum, both the President and the Director of Grove College seem to put forward an illogical argument based on unsubstantial assumptions. Without proper evidence to support their claims, their arguments will likely convince few people.

Votes
Average: 7 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 936, Rule ID: WHETHER[2]
Message: Wordiness: Shorten this phrase to the shortest possible suggestion.
Suggestion: whether; the question whether
...the issue. For example, the response to the question as to whether Grove College should adopt coeducation ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1028, Rule ID: WHETHER[6]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "as to"?
Suggestion: whether
...t coeducation wouldn apos;t be the same as to whether admitting male candidates would tarnish...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, likewise, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, thus, while, as to, for example, in addition, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3156.0 2260.96107784 140% => OK
No of words: 590.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34915254237 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92848004997 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87127648789 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 255.0 204.123752495 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432203389831 0.468620217663 92% => OK
syllable_count: 999.0 705.55239521 142% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.5060331028 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.827586207 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3448275862 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.37931034483 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.272995094184 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0815864047784 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.101775596373 0.0701772020484 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.184081497844 0.128457276422 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.127481532439 0.0628817314937 203% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 142.0 98.500998004 144% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK

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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.